Women Take The Lead

For five years, Aubrey Giraldez of Hollywood worked as a billing clerk in a law office.

In another five years, the second-year law student at Nova Southeastern University may have her own law office.

"It's important for the world to see that it's not always going to be like it was," said Giraldez, 27. "We're all climbing the ladder."

In three decades, women have gone from being a minority in higher education to a majority, also advancing in traditionally male-dominated fields such as law and medicine.

Women make up about 58 percent of U.S. college students, a 13 percent jump from 1975. The gender gap holds true at most of Florida's major universities, but is most prominent at NSU, where women comprise 71 percent of the student body.

U.S. Census figures show the overall population is evenly divided between men and women between the ages of 18 to 64.

Administrators at NSU, which has 26,000 students, say the gender gap is a sign of progress.

"For years, women were not entering higher education," said Don Rosenblum, dean of NSU's undergraduate school.

NSU leaders would prefer a more balanced enrollment, but would be loathe to act in any manner that shows favoritism to men, Rosenblum said.

Female students traditionally have held the largest numbers in NSU's education and nursing schools. Now women have seized large majorities at NSU's business and pharmacy schools and hold a 51- to 49-percent edge at the 960-student law school.

Randolph Pohlman, dean of NSU's business school, said this is partly a result of NSU's online and flexible-learning programs, which are particularly appealing to working women or single mothers.

Women have "tremendous economic incentive" to pursue higher education, said Jacqueline King, a director at the American Council on Education in Washington, D.C.

"Women seem to realize they just can't get any kind of decent job without some postsecondary education," King said.

Men are more likely than women to work in the construction and manufacturing industry, while the jobs open to women tend to be in the service sector, such as a minimum-wage retail clerk, King said.

As a result, women continue to lag in pay. In 2005, women in full-time jobs earned 81 percent of the median pay that men did, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. In addition, women made up only 31 percent of workers in the highest-pay quartile but they represented 53 percent of those in the lowest-earnings quartile.

Taylor Liput, an NSU senior, sees a brighter future ahead. She recalled that during high school it was expected she and her female peers in honors classes would attend college.

"It was never a question of whether we were going to get a job or go to college," said Liput, 23, a psychology major. "It was assumed."

Sara Rochyby, 23, a second-year law student at NSU, said, "People from my generation, we weren't raised being told we had to stay within traditional roles."

Joseph Harbaugh, NSU's law dean, said he expects the demographics of law schools will continue to shift to reflect the changes seen at the undergraduate level.

The degree is enticing because law students are trained in problem-solving and analytical skills that can be applied to outside careers such as science and technology, public service and real estate, he said.

"Law is one of the more attractive professional schools for women," Harbaugh said. "It's slowly beginning to change the makeup of the profession."

Today, women earn almost 50 percent of U.S. law degrees, up from 7 percent in 1971. Women make up about 34 percent of U.S. lawyers, up from 3 percent in 1971.

Still, men are well-represented at elite American universities such as Harvard and Yale, and dominate more lucrative fields such as engineering and computer science.

NSU humanities professor Kathleen Waites said policy makers nationwide should pay more attention to the college gender gap.

"You don't want any group to fall behind," said Waites, who teaches gender studies. "Of course you want women to advance, but you also want young men to advance."

Staff Researcher Barbara Hijek contributed to this report.

Douane D. James can be reached at ddjames@sun-sentinel.com or 954-385-7930.